Teacher on trial for indecent act on student, on a flight, 11 years ago

A music teacher is facing court accused of indecently touching a teenage student during an international flight 11 years ago.

A young woman has told a court she was indecently touched by her music teacher 11 years ago when she was 17, after cabin lights dimmed during an international flight.

The man – who cannot be identified to protect the identity of his alleged victim – has pleaded not guilty to two charges alleging he committed an indecent act on a female, without her consent, during a Jetstar flight from Japan to Australia in 2011.

The alleged victim, who was in Year 12 at a southeast Queensland high school, had been among an independent group of students and teachers returning from an overseas music exchange tour, the court heard.

The alleged victim, now 27, told Brisbane District Court that during the latter part of a flight from Japan to the Gold Coast the teacher asked if he could sit next to her.

She said after the cabin lights dimmed the man leant over, put his hand on her knee and said, “Let me know if you want me to stop.”

“I froze. I was terrified,” the woman told the court.

She said the man then moved his hand further up her thigh, inside her pants, touching the outside of her vagina.

“I was in shock this whole time, frozen with fear,” the woman said.

However while under cross-examination, the woman said, for the first time, that he took his hand off her leg and put it down her pants, from the top, touching her on the outside of her vagina.

She said she grabbed her music teacher’s hand, moved it to her knee and said, “Stop.”

The woman said the teacher kept his hand on her knee until a stewardess walked by and he snatched it away.

When asked by the prosecutor about her demeanour when she was being touched, the woman said: “I was frozen. I was in shock. I was terrified and didn’t know what to do ... my whole body was stiffened.

She said at Gold Coast Airport she told her then boyfriend and her best friend, now her husband, that a teacher had inappropriately touched her.

The woman said a couple of weeks later she got a text message from the man saying he did not think they should talk anymore.

She said when she asked why, he said his wife would think it was strange for him to be texting a teenage girl.

The woman said she made a complaint to police in 2019, after talking about the incident to her sister, her husband and her mother.

A phone call between the woman and the teacher, recorded by police in May, 2019, was played to the court.

In the call the woman mentioned him touching her leg and moving his hand up further, but she did not mention him touching her outside her vagina.

During the call the man said he did not remember what she told him, but said: “I’m really sorry if I did anything to hurt you.’’

The court heard the woman told police in 2019 she could have been wearing stretchy pants known as jeggings during the flight.

Defence counsel Craig Eberhardt told the jury the former student, who first made a complaint to police about the teacher in 2019, had made up the allegations.

“No one on that flight saw anything happen, no one on that flight saw her upset, no one saw her upset at the airport, there is no DNA evidence,’’ Mr Eberhardt said.

He said the teacher did not make any admissions during the recorded conversation with the woman.

The trial is continuing.